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Murray denies semi-final ´lights´ issues

23 January 2013 10:14

The Briton is set to play his first match of the tournament under lights in the semi-finals on Friday.

Fresh from dismantling unseeded Frenchman Jeremy Chardy, the third-seeded Scot dismissed reports that he and his camp - led by Ivan Lendl - were unhappy at the lack of night action for Murray, compared to likely semi-final opponent Roger Federer.

Murray said simply his response to a question was taken out of context after his win over Gilles Simon in the fourth round, but he also added a hit-up at Hisense Arena was pencilled for him in to get used to the conditions ahead of Friday.

"The scheduling for me is part and parcel of playing in really any tennis tournament. It's tough to make the schedule perfect for every single player," Murray said on Wednesday.

"I'll go out and hit balls on the Hisense tonight under the lights. I'll do the same again tomorrow, and that's it.

"If I was the tournament director or the referee or whoever decides the schedule, I also would have put Federer against Tsonga on as the night match tonight because it's the best match of the day.

"So I have no complaints about the schedule at all, and I didn't complain about it the other day. I was asked a question about the schedule. I said that sometimes it works in your favour and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you have to make adjustments."

Murray admitted his lead-up to a grand slam semi-final was hardly the tough test he would have expected before the tournament, but said his wins over Simon and Chardy were challenging in unique ways.

Simon had played a five-set marathon before taking on Murray, while Chardy had all but run his race in the tournament after eliminating three seeds - including Juan Martin del Potro - in succession.

"For me, today (against Chardy) was a decent test," he said.

"Really the last match was the one that was kind of a tough one just because normally against Simon, it's a lot of long rallies and it's a tough match against him.

"It was just kind of a nothing match. There was nothing really going on. There was no real atmosphere between us on the court. That was a tough match for me."

He added of Chardy: "He's a tough guy to play against because of the nature of his game and his style. He goes for a lot of shots and he can play a couple of games where he misses and then three, four games (later) he's hot and he makes very few errors and puts you under a lot of pressure."